Bitter Healing
by ncfan
Summary: Just wait for the desert wind to blow everything away. Baki's observations after the death of the Yondaime Kazekage. - Baki, Gaara, Kankuro, Temari -


**Characters**: Baki, Gaara, Kankuro, Temari**  
>Summary<strong>: Just wait for the desert wind to blow everything away. Baki's observations after the death of the Yondaime Kazekage.**  
>Pairings<strong>: None**  
>Author's Note<strong>: I like Baki. He's one of those background characters who can be summed up in a paragraph, and that's why I like him—I can do almost anything with his character and it won't be OOC.**  
>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Naruto.

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><p>"<em>I understand if you hated your father." Baki fixes his three genin in a stern stare, one by one. Temari's face is carefully blank, Kankuro's a step away from mutinous, and Gaara's utterly unimpressed. "But you are to behave with decorum at his funeral. Whatever you thought of him as your father he was still the Kazekage of this village. Behave yourselves."<em>

And they did. To Baki's immense surprise, they, all three of them did.

The other nations have adopted the foreign custom of wearing black to funerals, but Kaze no Kuni still employs white if only because it's never a good idea to wear full black in the desert, whatever Kankuro would have you think. All three of the Yondaime's children wore white to his funeral, and Baki thought then that there were never children who looked more out of place in white than did Sabaku no Temari, Sabaku no Kankuro or Sabaku no Gaara.

It's over. The eulogies have been said, the speeches made, the desiccated, ravaged corpse consigned to the earth. Baki's swapped drinks and the obligatory less-than-flattering drinks with a dozen or so fellow jonin, the older ones like him who remember the old days. It's over; the Yondaime Kazekage has been laid to rest and perhaps he can be forgotten.

Personally, Baki seriously doubts it.

A particular of Sunagakure shinobi law is that a sensei has some claim of guardianship over their genin. As Baki's genin no longer have any parents to speak of, he is now in some ways their legal guardian, which is pretty convenient for him since his wife just filed divorce proceedings, kicked him out of the house, and those kids have somewhere to stay and he doesn't.

_I'm not sure if Reiko's timing has ever been worse or ever been better._

While it may be a little undignified for the jonin commander of Sunagakure to be sleeping on the couch in his genin cell's house, Baki has never been so concerned with appearances as to discard reason for them.

Temari and Gaara and Kankuro interact in much the way in their own home as Baki had imagined. The elder two walk on tiptoes and eggshells around Gaara and only get into their brotherly-sisterly shouting matches when Gaara isn't around, which is fairly often. Gaara broods on the roof or goes out to the desert quite often; Kankuro retreats into his workshop for several hours at a time; Temari polishes her fan and watches Gaara's cacti with a single-minded fascination.

All in all, it's exactly what Baki expected.

Except it's not, especially where Gaara is concerned.

Gaara has not been making as many threats lately; he's been more docile, more placid, almost content. Temari and Kankuro aren't quite as wary around him as they used to be; they even dare to get in an argument with him in the room once or twice, though they still jump so high they hit the ceiling whenever he pops out of nowhere and they're careful to be polite. It's probably Baki's imagination, but whenever they do this Gaara gets an expression on his face that so vaguely rings of guilt that the jonin thinks the little red-head might actually feel _remorse._

Yeah, it's probably Baki's imagination.

This is interesting. It is all interesting to him because Baki, like any Suna jonin, like any Suna shinobi worth his salt, is an observer first and foremost. They pay attention to their surroundings; they pay attention to the people around them. It's been drilled in them from their first day in the Academy to pay attention to everything. _Look for the scorpion crawling in your shoe, _the teacher told them. _Look for these things._

What Baki is really watching for, however, is the way these three children-who-are-not-children react to the death of their father.

The Yondaime was a good Kazekage, a good ruler. He looked after the interests of Sunagakure better than any Kazekage before him and under his rule things were hard, but at least if you died you knew your family would have your pension and compensation from the state.

For all that he was a good ruler, though, he was not the best of fathers. The Yondaime saw his children as soldiers first, bargaining chips second and his children third. Most people thought of him as a bad father because of what he'd done to Gaara, but Baki knew the truth. The Yondaime was a bad father because he didn't first see his children as _his_ children; they were tools to him, first and foremost.

He was a bad father; no one's denying that. But he was still his children's father and Baki looks at them now, trying to discern any feelings of grief or loss in them.

It's difficult. These children Baki has known their entire lives; he knows that Gaara and Temari and Kankuro are the best at hiding things of anyone in their village. Perhaps the only thing these siblings of the Sand have in common is that they don't like for anyone to be able to see past the surface of their sun-beaten skin.

But Baki is their sensei, he's known them all since they were in diapers, and he can peel away layers of skin without them even noticing.

Temari is quieter, more serious. She was always a serious girl, never given to the giggly, hormonal antics of her kunoichi contemporaries, always a cut above her female peers. It's pronounced in her sudden lack of sneering, immature little smirks anywhere but on the battlefield. It's pronounced in the way her cache of catty remarks have been growing smaller and smaller over the weeks. She behaves more like a desert princess ought to, strong, dignified, still utterly terrifying when need be but calmer now. There's something beatific almost about that distant, queenly smile.

Kankuro is much the same but different too. He still wears war paint every hour of the day. He still has an unhealthy obsession with cats and he still wears full black over every inch of skin despite living in the desert. Baki's noticed a difference in his puppets though.

Kankuro's little creations have before been for pranking, for terrorizing the neighborhood kids and the elderly. Lately, he's been making alterations to Sasori's puppets that make them better-suited for war. His own creations are geared more towards battle than pranking—dripping poison and stuffed full of senbon. That smile is grim—he's waiting for something to happen.

Gaara is… calm. Out of all his siblings he perhaps knew their father best—out of necessity Gaara spent more time with the Yondaime than Temari or Kankuro, in training, and one gets the impression that repeated exposure did _not_ make the heart grow fonder in either man. Out of the dark shadow of his father Gaara has grown calmer; Baki refuses to believe that it's just due to the influence of this Uzumaki boy as Kankuro and Temari try to tell him.

Out from under the influence of his father, Gaara is more at peace than he has ever been. And what's more, he actually seems to want to make connections with other members of the human race nowadays. Personally, Baki's been taking hard looks at the water in his canteen and wonders if perhaps he should get it tested.

There's no denying that they've felt the death of thief father keenly, no matter what they choose to term their feelings.

The Yondaime Kazekage wasn't much of a father, but he was still the father of Sabaku no Kankuro, Sabaku no Gaara and Sabaku no Temari. Even if they didn't like him very much, he was still their father and he cast a long shadow over them all. One doesn't just forget that or get over it overnight. No one does.

Baki watches because this is what he has always done.

From his watching he draws conclusions.

The healing starts now. Slow and bitter and painstaking, and the effects it will have on personalities and mindsets alike Baki can not tell.

Just wait for the dry desert winds to blow everything away and for the grating desert sands to alter the landscape of the entire world. This is what he's always been told.


End file.
